Yet, there we were, just a few minutes into the Coldplay concert on Friday night at HP Pavilion in San Jose, being showered with massive amounts of confetti. The downpour seemed like it might never stop, as colorful cutouts of various shapes swirled about in the air, obscuring the view of the stage and creating a scene akin to a World Series victory parade.

It was truly a climactic moment, one that seemed tailor-made for when a band plays its biggest hit as the final encore of the night. But, in this case, it was actually only the second song of the evening – “Hurts Like Heaven,” a recent single that never even charted in the U.S.

That’s Coldplay in a nutshell. More than anything else – or, for that matter, pretty much anyone else – vocalist Chris Martin and crew simply want to please their fans. It doesn’t matter if others (i.e. critics ) think the group is making some wrong moves, Coldplay is going to fire those confetti cannons early and often if that’s what it takes to satisfy the crowd.

And it’s certainly working for the British pop-rock quartet.

Coldplay charmed the masses right from the very start of its career, with its 2000 debut, “Parachutes,” going on to sell nearly nine million copies. Now, it’s pretty easy to make the case that Coldplay is the world’s biggest rock band. Its latest release, “Mylo Xyloto,” was the world’s top-selling rock record of 2011. The two prior efforts, 2005’s “X&Y” and 2008’s “Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends,” were simply the world’s best-selling records, of any genre, for their respective years.

Of course, you don’t get that big without making quite a few enemies along the way. Many people love to hate Coldplay, blasting Martin, lead guitarist Jonny Buckland, bassist Guy Berryman and drummer Will Champion for making what some perceive to be watered-down, bland and overly commercial pop. Yet, that’s just another way of saying the band makes music that is suitable for mass consumption – and I think the Coldplay guys would be just fine with that description, since they seem to want to please as many people as possible.

On Friday night, during the first half of a two-night stand at HP Pavilion, the 35-year-old Martin, who is married to actress Gwyneth Paltrow, went out of his way to show his gratitude to his fans.

“I know it is a pain to go to concerts these days,” said the vocalist-guitarist-pianist, noting the price of tickets and traffic as two of the prime pains. “All we can do is to give you everything we have (in return).”

The band would do just that as it rolled through an utterly professional 100-minute set that was filled with nearly two dozen solid songs and even more cool special effects – including a wonderful laser light show and three different performance spaces, which allowed multiple fans to get up-close views of the group.

Opening the show with the title track to “Mylo Xyloto,” and quickly continuing through such longtime fan favorites as “In My Place” and “The Scientist,” Coldplay went for broke on each tune. The band put equal emphasis on both its signature numbers, such as the breakthrough single “Yellow,” and relatively obscure cuts, such as “Lovers in Japan.”

While the performance level never varied, the quality of the actual material certainly did. Coldplay has a handful of truly magical compositions, which stand tall among the best alt-rock tunes of the last dozen years, and the ones performed live in San Jose certainly thrilled the 15,000-strong audience. The most memorable ones were the achingly beautiful “Fix You,” the undeniably grand “Viva La Vida” and, of course, “Clocks,” which still ticks with precision and power.

The players came across more like regular Joes than rock stars. Studied individually, the musicians often seem quite ordinary – there’s not a single flashy player in the bunch. Yet, the whole manages to feel so much greater than the sum of its parts.

That sense of synergy, even more so than a few confetti cannons, is what truly makes a Coldplay concert special.

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